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HUB app vs. Disneys app question


BENHANDEL
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I have only cruised once and is was Disney. Their app worked perfectly for communicating with my kids. Some of the feedback on the HUB app $5 upgrade make me wonder if I should invest in the social media package? 

 

My kids are 11. 14 and 16 so I wont need constant contact, but I will want them to keep me updated on their whereabouts and for them to be able to contact us if necessary

 

Anyone know how the reliability of HUB compares to disney? 

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I don’t know how it compares to Disney but it worked well for us.  We cruised last time with about 4 teens and having the hub app with the chat feature was very useful for us to keep up with their whereabouts.  They had their own separate chat too. It was also good to be able to mark the activities you were attending and walk in and see that they were attending some of the same ones.  It was very reliable for us on the breeze and before that on the valor. 

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17 minutes ago, Quilcruisers said:

I don’t know how it compares to Disney but it worked well for us.  We cruised last time with about 4 teens and having the hub app with the chat feature was very useful for us to keep up with their whereabouts.  They had their own separate chat too. It was also good to be able to mark the activities you were attending and walk in and see that they were attending some of the same ones.  It was very reliable for us on the breeze and before that on the valor. 

Perfect! Thanks!

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The Hub app worked well for us on our last 2 cruises. The chat had a few hiccups every once in a while. Sometimes, even when I had the app open, it didn’t give a notification when a message was recieved. Every once in a while there would also be a delay in messages sent sooo on our last cruise on the Vista, we also purchased the social media WiFi package for both my wife and I. We used our text message app on the iPhones also and between the two never had any problems communicating with our group.

 

The app also gives you everything listed on the fun times in digital. You can favorite activities and it will send you notification when it is about to start. I think you will be happy with it even if you don’t have the backup with WiFi . I get a little over kill sometimes being the trip planner in the family 🤪

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The only issue we had with the app is if you didn't use it for a while it would log you out, so if someone was trying to contact you, you wouldn't get a notification.  Just make sure everyone checks in on an hourly basis to make sure they haven't been logged out and it should work great.

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Keep in mind the Hub Chat app uses the same wifi signal as the social media package - so if the Hub app message doesn't get through, it is likely neither will anything else, as long as you keep the app open/active.  As mentioned, it seems to "hibernate" for some folks (I cannot yet discern a pattern - some folks have no problems - I didn't have any issues when I used it on Liberty in March 2018).

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16 hours ago, BENHANDEL said:

I have only cruised once and is was Disney. Their app worked perfectly for communicating with my kids. Some of the feedback on the HUB app $5 upgrade make me wonder if I should invest in the social media package? 

 

My kids are 11. 14 and 16 so I wont need constant contact, but I will want them to keep me updated on their whereabouts and for them to be able to contact us if necessary

 

Anyone know how the reliability of HUB compares to disney? 

I can't comment on reliability, but did want to point out the HUB chat fee is $5 per folio# for the entire cruise.  I think social is $35 per user for a 7 day cruise.

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The Disney and Carnival chat systems are much of the same, but the apps are not interchangeable. Anywhere can be a blind spot to the WiFi on a ship, so there may be late delivery of messages. For people who find the app closed it might be a battery saving technique on your phone. The Google search engine can direct you to how to exempt the Carnival app if asked for your model of phone.

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5 hours ago, ProgRockCruiser said:

Keep in mind the Hub Chat app uses the same wifi signal as the social media package - so if the Hub app message doesn't get through, it is likely neither will anything else, as long as you keep the app open/active.  As mentioned, it seems to "hibernate" for some folks (I cannot yet discern a pattern - some folks have no problems - I didn't have any issues when I used it on Liberty in March 2018).

 

Thank you for that info... That really helps. I am very much looking forward to telling the kids they have to put away the internet for a week. If they would have the same functionality issues, my decision is made. Thanks again

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On 10/25/2018 at 12:12 PM, ProgRockCruiser said:

Keep in mind the Hub Chat app uses the same wifi signal as the social media package - so if the Hub app message doesn't get through, it is likely neither will anything else, as long as you keep the app open/active.  As mentioned, it seems to "hibernate" for some folks (I cannot yet discern a pattern - some folks have no problems - I didn't have any issues when I used it on Liberty in March 2018).

 

While you are correct that they use the same WiFi and will both have issues when WiFi signals are low, they are not using the same coding. My experience on my last 2 cruises using the hub app is that it has quirks and glitches that will delay and or fail on some messages. I never had a delay or fail on text messages using my iPhone app. While it was not a constant or critical failure, I was already purchasing the social media WiFi package and the iPhone texts were just more reliable. I discovered this when I was sending out messages to our group with the hub app and sending and additional message to my wife via iPhone text. My iPhone texts were many times delivered minutes before the hub texts. Again, not critical but more of an annoyance.

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32 minutes ago, FijiFlip said:

 

While you are correct that they use the same WiFi and will both have issues when WiFi signals are low, they are not using the same coding. My experience on my last 2 cruises using the hub app is that it has quirks and glitches that will delay and or fail on some messages. I never had a delay or fail on text messages using my iPhone app. While it was not a constant or critical failure, I was already purchasing the social media WiFi package and the iPhone texts were just more reliable. I discovered this when I was sending out messages to our group with the hub app and sending and additional message to my wife via iPhone text. My iPhone texts were many times delivered minutes before the hub texts. Again, not critical but more of an annoyance.

Interesting!  Thanks for that observation.  Maybe Carnival needs to look into improving that performance.  Or maybe with the "improved" wireless systems that have been installed/upgraded recently, the issue will go away.

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